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It’s almost more surprising when he starts getting the phantom aches of bruises and mild scrapes than if he’d never felt them at all.
“Maybe she just moved to LA,” his mother suggests.
She doesn’t want to consider what he’s already pieced together — his soulmate is young, so much younger than him, these are baby-bruises. The types of mild injuries people get are well-known from soulmate seekers, and these ones are plenty clear — the bumps of a youngster just learning to walk.
He doesn’t say that, just nods. It could be both — his soulmate being so terribly young, and having just moved close enough for their bond to register, but he doubts it. It’s an age gap, maybe only around ten years or so, but he knows that tight-lipped look and doesn’t say anything at all.
As the years pass, he understands her reaction more — the idea of a soulmate is such a beautiful one, to have his very soul ordained to be with another, so perfect they’re bonded in pain and comfort — but ten years is a long time. He’s nearly an adult now, and his soulmate hasn’t even reached double digits.
Not all soulmates are romantic, he’s reminded of this when a soulbonded pair of men join their church. Of course that could never be romantic, but their souls are meant to be together, twinned, as brothers. The thought leaves strange discomfort in its wake and he doesn’t know why, can’t begin to figure out why, and mentions it to no one.
The phantom injuries continue, and he passes his own onto his soulmate, guilty at each bruise, each cut, each fracture, increasing as he joins the LAPD and trains harder. His soulmate seems to take that as a challenge, or she’s become a wild child, and his own phantom pains increase ten-fold — broken bones, deep bruises, cuts that sting with stitches. A surge of protectiveness has him privately checking on typical abuse injuries, but to his overwhelming relief, they don’t match — just a child too rambunctious for her own good.
He meets Annie shortly after, a beautiful angel of a woman, and falls hard and fast. She’s never felt the ache of a soulmate, and doesn’t mind when he has one. It’s obvious quickly, not that he’d have hidden it, but on their second date his soulmate manages to run headfirst into something.
She’d raised her eyebrows when he’d winced mid-sentence, nothing in their quiet dinner to cause him to rub his forehead like that.
“I have a soulmate,” he’d said. “She’s very injury prone.”
“I don’t think I have one,” she’d said.
“I’m sure you have one,” he’d said — a foolish, besotted thing to say. “Maybe he’s just not in LA. His loss.”
She’d smiled at him, bright and soft, and he’d been done for. It’s an easy decision, barely even worth calling a choice, to ask her to marry him, have kids, to be at his side until death does them part.
The phantom injuries continue as the years pass, his own increasing as he trains for and then joins SWAT. They barely register, hidden under his own physical ones, but it’s a comfort to know his soulmate is still out there, getting into trouble, than it would be to stop feeling the injuries at all. If he meets his soulmate someday, it’ll be a pleasant surprise, but this life he’s built is wonderful and he no longer feels that yearning he used to. It’s just mild curiosity, the occasional thought when his soulmate gets a particularly bad injury, but unlikely to ever be satisfied.
***
He knocks on Hicks’ open door, entering at the gesture.
“You wanted to see me, Commander?” he says.
A step later he stops, exchanging a confused look with Rocker.
“Both of you, yes,” Hicks says. “Close the door.”
Deacon obeys, unsure what could have prompted this. The summons had been unexpected and he’d assumed it was something about the latest bunch of trainees he’s working with, but Rocker hasn’t been involved with this round of them.
“I wanted to talk about the raid on the drug warehouse last week,” Hicks says.
He doesn’t continue. Deacon exchanges another baffled look with Rocker.
“I thought that went well,” he says carefully. “I don’t recall there being any issues.”
Rocker’s fingers brush over his forearm, the white bandage covering the still-healing cut. It’d only needed a few stitches, it’s hardly worth Hicks’ intervention.
“It did go well,” Hicks says.
There’s a weighty pause.
“Too well.”
“How can it have gone too well?” Rocker says.
“There were some concerns raised about your methods,” Hicks says. “About your tactics during the raid.”
“Concerns?” Deacon says, blood turning to ice. “Commander—”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that to sound so dire,” Hicks says, waving a hand.
Rocker’s distinctly pale, and has the same paralyzed expression Deacon’s sure is painted on his own face.
“Two things were brought to my attention,” Hicks says. “First, someone mentioning they thought they’d lost you on comms, yet you two cleared your sector flawlessly.”
“Maybe they went out?” Rocker offers hesitantly. “Interference from the building?”
“It’s more of a case of you weren’t talking at all,” Hicks says.
“It was loud—”
“Silence stands out a lot more than talk in these situations,” Hicks says.
He has no idea what to say to that, the odd weight in Hicks’ words shifting the ground under him, and his inability to correct for something he doesn’t understand leaving him progressively more unsettled.
“But that’s not all,” Hicks says, rounding his desk. “If the silence hadn’t been mentioned, I wouldn’t have seen this. I wouldn’t have gone looking.”
He beckons them impatiently over to the screen, a washed-out video already loaded. The open doors past the hood of the police cruiser are vaguely familiar, as are the teetering stacks of that stockyard. It’s something of a miracle if they were seen on camera for more than a few seconds with how packed that area had been.
“Dashcams don’t have audio outside,” Rocker says.
“I’ll allow that we can’t confirm the silence,” Hicks says, “but this was far more interesting.”
“Any idea?” Rocker says to him, stopping by his side.
“None,” Deacon says, shrugging uselessly.
They’ve already been assured nothing went wrong with the operation, nothing they did was incorrect, and yet there’s a video, and yet they’re being questioned — not that the questions make any sense.
Flashes of movement and gunfire play on the grainy screen, hidden inside the warehouse, then the suspect they’d been pursuing stumbles out, him and Rocker following seconds later — in perfect formation, he might note — all normal, all smooth, Rocker at his back and him taking down their rabbit.
“Watch,” Hicks says.
The second suspect they hadn’t known was there comes out from behind the stack of tires — a flash of silver, blur of movement, and then he’s putting the assailant down and it’s over.
“No one had eyes or ears on him,” Rocker says, touching his arm again. “His knife barely got me, Deac had him down in a second.”
“You’re not watching,” Hicks says, restarting it.
“It looks exactly like I remember,” Deacon says.
“Then look,” Hicks says, slowing the replay down.
They watch, again, frames creeping by, and Hicks pauses it right as the knife comes out.
“Watch,” he says again, with that strange stress.
The knife descends, cuts into Rocker’s arm—
“See?” Hicks says.
“I can see that I don’t like having my arm cut,” Rocker says.
“Watch Deacon,” Hicks says.
It’s really not fair of him to be getting exasperated when he’s the one confusing them, but Deacon stifles it and tries to figure out what he’s supposed to be seeing. The video creeps forward, the shape of the second suspect starting to emerge, hand coming down—
“Wait,” Rocker says suddenly. “That— no, rewind it.”
“What?” Deacon says, looking between them and the screen. “What did you see?”
It plays again, glacially slow, but Deacon still fails to see whatever Hicks and Rocker are seeing.
“Look at you,” Rocker says slowly. “You’re reacting before I reacted. As soon as I see the suspect, you’re turning.”
He’d been preoccupied taking down their rabbit, then he’d heard the second assailant and Rocker’s grunt of pain and turned to deal with the situation. Except this video suggests he’d been turning before Rocker had even been touched, before he could have even been aware, which makes no sense.
“I don’t understand,” he says, almost plaintively now. “How is that possible?”
He wants to protest — maybe it was just luck that had him turning right then, except it wasn’t because he hadn’t had the rabbit fully down and he wouldn’t have turned away naturally. He couldn’t have heard the second suspect, couldn’t have seen the knife, couldn’t have heard the noise of pain Rocker hadn’t even made yet because he wasn’t even injured when he started turning.
Rocker’s eyeing him in a way that has him shifting again. He opens his mouth on yet another question when Rocker whacks his wrist into the wall.
“What did you do that for?” Deacon says, startled. “Aren’t you already injured enough?”
“How’s your wrist?” Rocker says.
“It’s—” he stops, and actually pays attention to it for once, too used to dismissing minor pains, phantom or not. “It hurts.”
He stares at it in confusion — the wrist bone aches where it hadn’t before, the same spot Rocker had hit against the wall.
“Had to check,” Rocker says, shrugging.
“It’s not possible,” he says dumbly.
“Looks pretty possible to me,” Hicks says.
Deacon hits the back of his hand on the nearest chair.
“Was that necessary?” Rocker says, giving him a dirty look and rubbing his other hand.
“Had to check,” Deacon says.
“You two have always worked so well together in the field,” Hicks says.
“We’ve worked together for years,” Deacon points out. “We both work well with other officers too.”
Hicks is visibly holding something back, but right now, Deacon’s heard enough new information for one afternoon.
“No wonder you got injured so much,” he says, eyeing his wrist.
“You’re one to talk,” Rocker says with a startled laugh, like the casual, neutral reaction hadn’t been what he’d expected at all.
“Guess that makes us even,” Deacon says. “Anything else, Commander?”
“There’ll be more in the future, but not right now,” Hicks says, eyes flicking between them. “You’re dismissed.”
The way he’s back to contemplating the frozen shot of the video bodes— well, if not ill, then certainly worrisome for them now.
“So,” Rocker says, falling in next to him in the hall. “Soulmates.”
“Soulmates,” Deacon echoes.
“I’m gonna go ahead and assume romantic is off the table,” Rocker says with a wry curl to his mouth.
Deacon hides a wince. It’s a common hope, and one Rocker’s expressed before when it’s come up in casual talk around headquarters. Now there’s no hope at all for him.
“Sorry,” he says.
Rocker shrugs.
“At least we met,” he says. “Not early enough, but that’s fine.”
It’s half a joke, but it stirs that discomfort in Deacon’s stomach, one he hasn’t felt in years. Suddenly he wonders if his body somehow knew his soulmate was a man, all the way from the beginning, putting those soulbound men at his church just to prepare him for this eventuality.
There’s no early enough that would have given Rocker what he wants out of this, but there’s no need to salt the wound.
“It makes sense, in a way,” he says instead.
“Really?” Rocker says.
“Same-sex soulmates are meant for the bonds of brotherhood,” Deacon says. “We’re officers of the law, we’ve sworn the same vows. Of course we could be soulmates.”
Rocker makes a small noise.
“Much like King David and Jonathan— no, I’m not saying that because he’s my namesake,” Deacon says, shaking his head at Rocker’s snort.
Rocker’s mouth turns up a little at the corners, but he doesn’t say anything.
“We were brought together to protect and serve,” Deacon stresses, trying to force the words even and use them to smooth out the turbulence inside himself. “That moment on the video only proves it, we’re meant to use this.”
Another squad passes by and Deacon stops talking over the clatter filling the hall.
“There’s no way Hicks is done with this,” Rocker says. “Not with that on tape, not with that look in his eye.”
Deacon feigns a shudder, though whatever plans Hicks has for soulbound officers is more than a little alarming of a thought.
“I know I’ve been ignoring the phantom injuries, but they could be useful,” Rocker says, pausing by a grated window. “At the very least, if we can tell them apart.”
“The bond attenuates with distance, but I don’t know how sensitive it is,” Deacon says. “I haven’t—”
He hasn’t looked into any soulbond information in years, decades even. The faint background noise of the injuries had been enough to soothe that part of his life, he hadn’t needed or wanted more.
“I need to get going, but I’ll do some digging,” Rocker says. “Maybe as self-defense against whatever Hicks is plotting.”
“Sounds good,” Deacon says. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Rocker salutes him lazily, ambling off and leaving Deacon unfocused and unsettled. He has a soulmate— no, he’s always known that. He’s met his soulmate, worked with him for years, saved each others lives, and they had no idea what they truly were to each other until a cruiser had been parked at just the right angle at just the right moment.
The odds are astronomical, to the point he can’t believe it’s anything but fate, a divine plan revealing it to them. Why this moment, why this way, he doesn’t have a hope of understanding, but it’s not for him to need to understand the mysterious ways of God, only to accept the gifts he’s given and strive to be worthy of them.
***
“You’ve been quiet tonight,” Annie says.
He’d struggled to maintain an attentive attitude for the kids over dinner, but now they’re in bed and his mask is falling.
“Did something happen at work?” she says.
“You could say that,” he says, rubbing his face with both hands.
An odd reluctance to share this makes him hesitate, a foreign feeling when it’s his wife of so many years, and not something from work she needs to be shielded from.
“I found my soulmate today,” he says.
“Not on a call, I hope,” Annie says. “Or God forbid, injured?”
Deacon huffs a laugh.
“No, no injuries, and no criminals,” he says. “It’s Rocker.”
“Rocker?” Annie says incredulously. “As in Donovan Rocker?”
“Yeah,” Deacon says.
“But you’ve worked together for years,” she says. “Wouldn’t you have known by now?”
He manages a tired smile this time.
“If Hicks hadn’t gotten ahold of that video, we still wouldn’t know,” he says. “I have no idea how he saw it in the first place.”
“What video?” she says.
He collects himself, rolls his own confusion up and focuses on easing the tension in his home and being the steady center of his family, even if the kids are all in bed. Relating the discovery doesn’t make it make anymore sense, but all else aside, the pain test was conclusive.
After so many years of marriage, he can read the minutiae in her expression — accepted by the Church or not, she isn’t comfortable with him having a male soulmate. A thread of bitter resentment curls up in him — unfair, but this is his soulmate.
“There was a soulbound pair at my church growing up,” he says. “Two men.”
“I know it happens, but…”
The ‘but not to us’ goes unsaid, but it doesn’t need to be. It wedges something hard between his ribs and stings him to speech.
“Soulmates are given to us by God,” he says, a little too sharply, but this isn’t their place to question. “He bound Rocker to me, and me to Rocker. If that wasn’t part of His plan, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“I didn’t mean that, David,” she says, instantly contrite, instantly soft. “It’s such a surprise.”
Tension keeps him rigid even as he nods and tries to breathe it out of his back, the sharpness misdirected with his own turmoil.
“Hicks wants to explore it more and see how we can utilize it in the field,” he says.
“Is that a good idea?” Annie says.
It’s all concern this time, just worry about him in the field, worry about extra risk when everything they do is already so dangerous.
“It’s only during training,” he says, resting his hand over hers. “Until we can determine just what it does, we won’t be working together on any operations.”
Part of him resents that, more than he’d expected — he and Rocker really do work well together, and he’s always appreciated having him at his back. Not that there’s any way to tell how much of that has been the soulbond, but nothing like what happened last week has ever happened before either.
“It won’t change much,” he says, winding their fingers together. “We’ve been working together for years without knowing about it. If anything, this will only make us safer in the field.”
She’s not convinced, but the thought of him safer does help. He’s still adjusting to the entire reveal himself, it’s only fair that she’ll need time too.
His feelings are more varied, messier than he’ll admit to, even to his wife, or maybe especially to his wife. She doesn’t need to be worried about his uncertainties, the guilty curiosity, the pull towards Rocker he can’t decide was there before or not. That’s all something he’ll work through on his own, as he always does, to keep his family safe from worry.
***
He hooks his hands in the front of his vest, waiting for Rocker to finish adjusting his to the sounds of everyone else doing the same around them.
“Finally taking a break from your weird voodoo doll routine?” Street says.
“No need to be jealous you don’t have a soulmate around to stick pins in you,” Rocker says cheerfully.
“I think I’m alright with that,” Street says under his breath.
Hicks had been more than game for Rocker’s suggestion of sorting out their injury connection, and they’d settled on using pins for sensations — sharp, tiny pain, highly localized, minimal damage. The downside is that they do start looking like the victims of a sewing machine accident by the end, but the attenuation is well worth it.
If he’s being honest with himself, he’s not entirely sure what this will do, but he guiltily likes the excuse for them to explore their bond.
“We’re sticking pins in ourselves,” he adds.
“That doesn’t make it any more appealing,” Street says.
“I’m looking forward to shooting you,” Rocker says with that wild grin he gets suiting up for training exercises and callouts, the one that’s gone the second they’re locked in but undoubtedly lives inside him. The one Deacon hadn’t known he’d memorized. “Many times.”
“If you can,” Street shoots back, and the pre-training banter is back on.
It’s canted oddly with the design of the upcoming exercises, but it relaxes him with the familiarity all the same. It might usually be 20 squad vs 50 squad banter, but it’s good-natured ribbing even if it’s him and Rocker against the world — or his own team, but the more they work their bond, the more it feels larger than that.
“The odds really aren’t in your favor,” Chris says dryly, with a half-sympathetic grimace.
“Yeah,” Deacon sighs. “Hicks.”
Hicks has been positively intent on activating the merge he still insists had happened on camera, and the rest of SWAT is equally fascinated. It’s unproven — and while Deacon would like to deny it out of some strange nerves fluttering in his stomach at every mention — he doesn’t truly believe Hicks is wrong.
This is supposed to prove it, to get them into that shared headspace again while being monitored by better cameras than a lone dashcam can manage. Hicks had added in audio to the setup, insistent on their lack of verbal communication, which he and Rocker both are dubious about. Calling out is too ingrained in them both after years of working on SWAT, maybe they share insights, but to go silent sounds absurd.
“I think we’re going to end up with a lot of bruises,” he says to Rocker, shouldering his gun.
“And a complete loss of dignity,” Rocker agrees, lifting his fist until Deacon bumps it with his own. “But hey, we can still get some of them good anyway.”
It’s not an ordinary training scenario, it’s him and Rocker against all of 20 squad, with 50-squad waiting excitedly in the wings to go after them too. He wouldn’t put it past Hicks to call in the rest of the squads for this if he thought it’d somehow jolt that flash of connection to life.
Privately, he’s not sure if he wants it to be real or not, and Rocker hasn’t said anything about it. They’ve only discussed Hicks determination and the uncertainty in that footage, and Deacon’s hesitant to bring it up. He’s not sure what Rocker would say, what he thinks about this particular part, and for some reason, isn’t sure he wants to find out. He’s not even sure what answer he’d want, not when he doesn’t know how he’d answer that question either.
It doesn’t help when Annie’s been quieter since their soulbond was revealed, along with this unusual strength and depth. Anyone would be — a soulmate coming in late in life, interrupting a marriage, it’s such a popular trope in movies, even though this is real life and not anywhere close to a movie.
Unfortunately, she knows — everyone knows — that the way they’re poking at their bond is unusual, no matter the reasons they use. His awareness of Rocker has increased exponentially, even outside of the pain attenuation, but he’s also never focused this hard on one person before. Still, all of that is a far cry from some sort of mind-meld, and even further from the kind of drama in movies of a soulmate breaking in and being so much more.
Reminding his wife, reminding himself, that it’s a same-sex bond and therefore nothing more than a deep brotherhood hasn’t helped — no matter how often he repeats that their souls are knit together and their paths were set to collide in this specific moment when they’re both ready to utilize their bond to protect and serve. He’s not sure how convincing he can be when he’s still warring with that strange crooked feeling he’d gotten all those years ago, but he’s nothing if not good at shelving uncertainty to stand strong.
The exercises go about as well as he’d expected, and based on Rocker’s poorly hidden annoyance, his too. The two of them against the rest of his squad — not even pretending to be limited hostiles, just a full-fledged SWAT team after them — there’s only so much they can do. The frustration mounts after each run, each time they fail and one or both of them are taken down. The sense of failure and loss builds with each time, no matter that this is just paint and just practice, and deliberately stacked against them.
“How long are we going to do this?” Rocker pants, yanking his helmet off and scrubbing his face. “If you wanted a modern art exhibit, there’s easier ways than this.”
The doors open and 50-squad all but bounces in, grins delighted and evil.
“Just shoot us now,” Rocker groans. “This is a waste of paintballs.”
Hicks doesn’t relent, only sends them through the scenarios again, and again, and again, until Deacon’s pretty sure they’re both considering quitting out of spite.
“There we go,” Hicks says as they come to a stop, splattered with new colors, Rocker openly seething. “I knew we’d get there.”
“Are we done?” Deacon says, too tired to care anymore.
The rest of their teams are hovering, but they’re suddenly more fascinated than gloating, looking at them like they’re aliens. He doesn’t think he can take another run, this has gone on for hours and he’s nearing — or possibly over — his limit.
“Go get cleaned up, then come to central,” Hicks says, waving them off.
Whatever Hicks has found, he doesn’t even care anymore, he’s just relieved to be done. Rocker has that wrinkle of confusion on his forehead, but he doesn’t comment either, just trudges for the lockers next to him.
“What if I drown myself in the shower?” Rocker says over the patter of water. “I can’t do more of this.”
“Hicks seemed satisfied,” Deacon says, though the idea does sound appealing with how much his body is going to hurt in the morning.
“For now,” Rocker mutters darkly.
“Let’s go find out,” Deacon says, flipping the water off.
“I am curious,” Rocker admits with such reluctance Deacon snorts.
“Who wouldn’t be after that mess,” he says.
The central room is packed, and he lets Rocker elbow everyone out of the way until they’re next to Hicks with an unimpeded view of the video cued up.
“First, you two operating normally,” Hicks says.
The video is not pleasant to watch — it’s one of the earlier runs and they’re taken out too fast. Rocker winces next to him. He really didn’t need a reminder of this, didn’t need to see the way they failed and never made it far through the course, no matter how many officers they had hunting them.
“And now, the last run,” Hicks says.
It all looks the same to him as it starts, they’re moving slower and technicolor with paint, but then—
“Did the sound cut out?” Deacon says, frowning.
“You stopped talking to each other,” Hicks says. “The other squads are talking.”
It’s true, the video has distant calls and the pop of paintballs, but he and Rocker have gone entirely silent. They’re not even using hand signals, they’re just working as though they’re using those. No, they’re working more smoothly than if they were using them, as though they’re sharing thoughts.
“And watch this,” Hicks says.
He’s far too smug, but Deacon’s too tired to care, and distantly, he can’t blame him for pulling this off. Even if he maybe dislikes him right now for how much pain he’s in.
“That’s an impossible reaction,” Hicks says, pointing at the screen as Rocker takes Luca out. “He couldn’t have known Luca was there.”
Deacon squints at it, squints at Rocker, then back at the screen where it’s been rewound. It’s true, Rocker had no sightline on Luca before he’d moved and taken him down too fast to register, but he did.
“Are we sharing eyes?” Rocker says, leaning forward with fists on the table. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“If I had to guess, it’s your training that lets you merge like this,” Hicks says. If he was less dignified, he’d probably be rubbing his hands together. “In times of extremis, it’s probably happened to other soulmates, but you’re the first ones on camera, or aware it’s happening.”
Deacon wouldn’t say they’re necessarily aware, but they are conclusively on camera.
“Merge,” he says, head light. “We’re merging.”
The video keeps playing, and they had gotten much further on this run — not talking, sharing sight, moving smoothly in a way that even well-ingrained verbal communication wouldn’t account for. It’d given them an edge they hadn’t had before, even if they’d still been horribly outnumbered.
“Damn, that’s cool,” someone says, and murmurs of agreement fill the room.
A quick look at the massed crowd confirms fascination with the reveal, not quite as much as Hicks seems to be, but he stifles a sigh at being somewhat of a sideshow.
“We’re going to keep working on this,” Hicks says, in a tone that brooks no opposition.
“I don’t know if we can keep up with this kind of training,” Rocker says. “Not and still be able to function in the field.”
“This was deliberately over the top to force it out,” Hicks says. “We need you to be able to access this without such intense pressure.”
“Is this what lab rats feel like?” Rocker says to him in an undertone.
“Both of you, take tomorrow off to recover,” Hicks orders. “We’ll start digging after that.”
He and Rocker breathe out in overwhelming relief at the same time, garnering an amused half-smile from Hicks.
He’s so tired he barely pays attention to collecting his things until Rocker’s clearing his throat in the empty locker room, looking up to see him with his bag slung over his shoulder.
“How is Annie taking this?” Rocker says, shifting on his feet.
Deacon blinks. His first instinct is to brush it off — it’s personal, his marriage and no one else’s business, but this is his soulmate. Rocker is the other half of him, of course he can talk to him more openly about this, he might be the only one he can.
“She’s struggling with the same-sex soulmate bond,” he admits with a wry smile. “Some of it because it’s you.”
Rocker wrinkles his nose.
“Because we’ve worked together for so long without knowing about it,” Deacon says hastily. “Not because of you personally, I didn’t mean that.”
A thread of tension through Rocker’s shoulders eases.
“It makes you safer in the field,” he says finally. “I thought she’d appreciate that.”
“It makes you safer too,” Deacon says.
Rocker’s face does something complicated before it’s gone under his usual easy, if tired, smile.
“Anyway, I’m gonna go sleep for fifteen hours,” he says. “Maybe I’ll even be able to walk again by the time Hicks pounces.”
Deacon waves vaguely as Rocker disappears, finishing tugging his jacked on and slightly disquieted by that flash of something across his face. Despite working together so closely, despite being soulmates, he still can’t read Rocker. For all his openness, all his jokey, easy-going personality, there’s always been a sharp, hidden side under it all and sometimes it’s too easy to forget that.
That split second of something follows him home, kneading its claws in the back of his mind with no further understanding.
***
Hicks is true to his word, and doesn’t push them to the breaking point again. They’re still sent off on their own strange training exercises, but unfortunately — or fortunately, he’s still not sure — the knowledge that they can do this strange mental merge makes it easier to access each time they try.
It’s still extra work, and an additional mental strain he hadn’t been expecting. Utilizing their soulbond doesn’t seem like it should be tiring, but maybe it’ll lessen the more they practice, like any physical exercise until it’s unconscious. This kind of bond behavior is completely unknown, and both he and Rocker have categorically refused to speak to any of the researchers or doctors all but foaming at the mouth to pry at their bond.
That distraction and exhaustion is what he blames for not noticing the increasing quiet tension from Annie over the next several months. The silence in the kitchen one night — admittedly when he has more energy because Rocker’s been on vacation for the past few days — finally registers.
“Is something wrong?” he says.
“No,” she says, packing away the kid’s things for the morning school rush.
He waits until she gets closer to catch her and pull her in, careful and soft and she comes easily — not truly mad at him then.
“Is it something with the kids?” he guesses. “Something I did?”
She sighs and runs a hand through her hair.
“No,” she says again.
The way it’s drawn out tells him she’s already capitulating and he just needs to wait. He runs his hands down her arms, twining their fingers together.
“I’m not sure I like this work you’re doing with Rocker,” she says finally, lips thin.
“It’s getting easier, it won’t take so much out of me soon,” he says. “I can tell Hicks I need to do less with it if I’ve been too distant.”
“It’s not that,” she says. “It’s the way you’re— I don’t know, the way you’re strengthening the bond so much.”
“I thought you’d be happy we’re safer,” he says, frowning. “It gives us an edge no one else has.”
“Of course I am,” she says, but he can hear the ‘but’ just fine. “I feel like it’s pulling you away from me. Like it’s coming between us.”
He doesn’t say — doesn’t let himself think — that he’d asked Rocker one day if he would have wanted it to be a romantic relationship if given the choice, if it’d been a different man. Rocker had looked at him for a long moment, eyes hooded and expression locked down. It’d been like being watched by a statue before he’d jerked his chin once, and more guilt had piled into the weight in Deacon’s chest.
He’d wanted to apologize, but it’s not his fault that a larger force than either of them had set this up, but he still feels like he’s denied — continuing to deny — Rocker something close and beautiful he’d so openly wanted.
It’s fine for him of course, a bond of brotherhood, shared in pain and comfort, arms and shield, that’s more than he could have ever hoped for after knowing he has a soulmate all these years. It rings a little false and he can’t figure out why, but those thoughts always sound just a bit off. There’s no one to ask about this, and no one he wants to ask, some deep primal fear of this hidden thing lurking inside him, a Pandora’s box of something he’s scared of looking at.
He clears his throat.
“It’s not as dramatic as it sounds,” he says. “Hicks like to call it a merge, but it’s more like sharing a camera feed.”
“Isn’t it?” Annie says, raising her eyebrows. “You’re sharing pain, your vision, even communicating without speaking.”
“Well, yes and no,” he hedges. “Everything we’re doing is to make sure it’s deliberate instead of accidental. We need to be able to communicate with the rest of our teams more than we need to be in sync with each other.”
He doesn’t say — again, doesn’t let himself think — that he likes when they drop into that space of being one, their shared souls, shared vision, shared goals. It’s not like they’re one person, they’ve just trained enough and are close enough that it’s simple to share across their bond.
“This training is to make sure it doesn’t happen,” he says.
His words finally work and she relaxes. They’re true, and also not true, not when being able to keep themselves separate with careful deliberation means they can also share just as deliberately. With all of the work they’ve been doing, there isn’t even a need for pressure or stress to do it anymore — they can just share, not that they do that, but they could.
“All this extra work has been exhausting, that’s all it is,” he says, aiming for soothing despite the complete lack of stability inside his chest. “It’s getting easier, soon it’ll be back to normal like nothing ever changed.”
It’s such a complete lie he can’t believe she doesn’t call him on it, that he isn’t struck down for such a falsehood, but it’s apparently what she wants to hear and the last of her worry disappears.
There’s no way for him to ever go back to the way things were, and he doesn’t want to. The thrill of their bond is too much, the delight he gets from simply knowing his soulmate after so long impossible to deny. Even with the strange unsettled sensations that continue to plague him, he’d never want to go back to not knowing his soulmate.
***
After it’s over, he has to be a little impressed with the sheer audacity.
In the moment, there’s nothing but cold, burning rage for anyone who dares touch his soulmate like this.
“This was targeted,” Deacon says to the loose crowd of officers around the mobile command trailer. “They went after him specifically.”
Word had spread months ago about the two soulbound officers, not that he’d expected them to be able to hide it, but the attention is uncomfortable. This, however, this is much worse than any demanding researcher or prying journalist.
“It makes sense,” he says when no one responds. “They’re cornered and need an exit strategy. Rocker is the best leverage they’ll get.”
He ignores — doesn’t ignore, but doesn’t acknowledge the injuries he’s picking up from Rocker, somewhere in that maze of a building. The one thing he’s holding onto is the fact that killing Rocker right now would leave this cartel with no leverage whatsoever, and no way out but certain death.
“If we’d gone in on that side, they’d have taken me,” he adds. “They wanted one of us hostage.”
Something bites into his wrists, sharper than the other blunt pain. Handcuffs, most likely. A good sign — Rocker chained somewhere stationary, which also means most of the attention will be off him.
“We don’t have eyes on him,” Hicks says, mouth set grimly.
“Can you see—”
“We’re not telepathic,” Deacon snaps.
He presses his thumb into a buckle and waits until it’s echoed back.
“He’s handcuffed,” he says distractedly, sorting through the code Rocker’s sending. “And…” he focuses harder. “He thinks third floor, two guards.”
Learning Morse to use for communication had been another of Rocker’s inspired ideas — the press of a bruise into the pad of a finger, subtle yet easily registered between them. It hasn’t been relevant until now, but he’s overwhelmingly glad they’d learned it.
“You’re staying close to keep tabs on Rocker,” Hicks says.
He doesn’t need it said, he’s compromised and regardless of his ability to communicate with Rocker, he wouldn’t be allowed back in on the operation. He only half-listens to Hicks talking with Hondo and Mumford about strategies, trying to figure out what they can give or promise the cartel in order to get Rocker back without conceding too much.
They’ve been hunting this particular branch of the cartel for months — years for some of the DEA agents with them — and they’ve finally cornered them. Which is why it makes all the more sense for them to have targeted Rocker like this, even if they don’t know it won’t affect how the negotiations are handled. As much as they all hate having a teammate, a friend — his goddamn soulmate — as the hostage, it won’t change their tactics. Rocker knows that, and so does Deacon, no matter how much it rankles.
He starts pacing, catching worried and suspicious looks that slowly peter out. He expands his roaming, looking all the world like a frustrated yet obediently caged soulmate. His plan slowly comes together as he circles, widening them to ensure he’s out of sight for decent stretches of time before reappearing to confirm his presence and Rocker’s unchanging status with Hicks.
His plan hinges on assumptions, on assuming what assumptions everyone will make of him. It sounds like a tower of cards, but with the capture and the taunts, it should be exactly what the cartel is expecting. Hicks and the rest of the officers here aren’t nearly as sure, he’s been too good at following orders all his years, they aren’t expecting him to do anything stupid.
He can’t deny this is stupid, but that’s altogether too bad. Sometimes stupid works. And maybe everyone has a point, and he’s doing something completely idiotic because it’s Rocker in danger, but he’d like to think he’d do it for anyone on his team. That sounds as hollow as his lies always do these days and he ignores it, focusing on the fact that his plan only works because they are soulmates.
“Do you have dental floss?” he says to the paramedics standing by. “Or something similar?”
They supply it cautiously. Even they know he’s on lockdown, but it’s only dental floss. He thanks them and doesn’t let them see what he’s doing with it.
He’s already studied the building blueprints and he scans the latest intel on the location of the cartel members — not all of them are accounted for, but most have been — and Rocker’s continued assertion that there’s only two visibly guarding him. Based on the original route that 50 squad had gone in with, and where they’d been ambushed and Rocker taken, he’s narrowed down Rocker’s location fairly closely.
While it’d be handy to sneak in and out without running into any hostiles, he has no delusions it’ll happen like that. Sneaking in without being seen by anyone down here is his first challenge, but there’s a convenient shouted batch of negotiations and taunts right then and he’s able to slip around the building to his chosen access point.
He takes out two patrolling cartel members quietly on his way up to the third floor before he’s cornered. They wouldn’t have caught him if he’d been using a gun, but gunfire would draw attention he doesn’t want. Capture had been his actual plan, the odds of sneaking in and out without it happening close to zero. The sharp strike of metal to his face turns the world to black and white starbursts for a moment, blood pooling in his mouth and ears ringing.
The talk around him doesn’t register as he stumbles through the debris, a gun jabbing into his back when he falters. He’s shoved into a small, windowless room and relief blankets him when Rocker looks up. His arms are stretched over head, handcuffed to a rusty yet solid pipe running along the wall.
He’s turned to the opposite side of the room and balks.
“The least you could do is put me next to my soulmate,” he says, spitting blood out.
That gets him the derisive laughs he’d expected, but he holds his glare and lets his eyes dart to Rocker, lets them see a moment of weakness.
“Fine,” the lead man says. “They don’t have long left.”
He lets his breath out, also unhidden, though they mistake it for something else. He doesn’t need to be next to Rocker to pull this off, but it’s a lot easier if he is. The ground is hard under his knees as he’s shoved down roughly, arms yanked up and handcuffs tightened sharply to the pipe overhead, a solid vertical one between him and Rocker.
“This was really stupid,” Rocker says as they’re left alone again.
“I thought you’d appreciate it more,” Deacon says.
“I might have, if you hadn’t just gotten handcuffed next to me,” Rocker says, rattling them pointedly.
“Don’t worry, I have a plan,” Deacon says.
“When they say that in movies, it’s usually right before something goes horribly wrong,” Rocker says.
“Don’t you trust your own soulmate?” Deacon says.
“Thought my soulmate was less of an idiot than this,” Rocker says, but he’s getting increasingly curious.
“Maybe,” Deacon says. “We’ll see.”
Rocker sighs and rolls his eyes, but the worry stays in the corner of his mouth and it lacks the usual sass. Deacon wiggles the loop of floss over his tooth, careful to keep the key tucked along the inside of his lip. Their guard slowly loses interest in them as negotiations with SWAT ramp up — the cartel has all the leverage they need now, and everyone knows it. He should probably feel worse about putting all this stress on everyone, throwing a wrench into the operation, but he’d do worse to get Rocker back.
“Rocker,” Deacon says quietly. Rocker doesn’t turn, too busy eyeing their distracted guard. “Donovan.”
His first name startles him into paying attention, as he’d hoped. He leans around the pipe, scooting as close as the handcuffs will let him. The rattle gets him a quick narrow look from the guard, but it’s just a flash of annoyance before they’re ignored again.
With his hands bound, all he can do is give Rocker an impatient look when he only gets a confused wrinkle in return.
“What?” Rocker says.
“Closer,” Deacon says. “Get closer.”
He’s finally within reach and Deacon can close the space and press their mouths together. Rocker makes a startled sound and jerks back, and for a moment Deacon worries he’s going to break away and ruin their cover, but he leans into it instead.
Once he’s sure Rocker is playing along, despite his obvious confusion, he pulls back an inch, keeping their faces close. He works the key onto his tongue and leans in again, cautiously waiting for Rocker to respond and open to his tentative touch so he can pass the key across.
Rocker freezes as he feels the metal, and then it’s gone and tucked down along his lip.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Rocker says against his mouth, but he’s smiling.
“Nothing of note,” Deacon says. “Stay close, I need to get the other key loose.”
“You brought two?” Rocker says.
“If we get free at the same time, it’s a lot easier,” Deacon says. “This one got stuck though.”
He wiggles at it with his tongue, frustrated. The strike must have caused his gums to swell around the floss, or maybe these teeth are closer together than the others.
“Here, I’ll help,” Rocker says, and then he’s kissing him again.
It’s one of the strangest experiences of his life, ostensibly making out with a man he’s handcuffed next to, tongue in his mouth, except they’re both focused on getting a handcuff key free.
They rate a disgusted sound and a few insults from their irritable guard, and another lucky break as he goes into the hall. It’s probably a uniquely terrible kiss to witness, since they’re entirely focused on the key and nothing else. Or mostly nothing else, but there’s no space to address whatever’s happening inside him when they need to break out of here and the floss is slowly loosening.
Once it’s free and they catch their breath, the rest goes fast and smooth. They’re out of the cuffs at the same time, their inattentive guard down silently, and they’re back out the way he came in. In less than two minutes, they’re on the ground and darting back to the safety of the mobile command truck.
It resembles nothing more than a kicked anthill, one that freezes the instant they’re spotted.
“We’re clear,” Deacon says unnecessarily.
“You’re not off the hook for this, but go see the medics,” Hicks says, relief undercutting the sharp reprimands coming their way. Coming his way, since Rocker didn’t do anything wrong. “Alright—”
The bustle is suddenly directed, sharp and alert now that the hostage situation is resolved. Deacon pushes Rocker over to an open ambulance, forcing him to sit on the back.
“I’m fine,” Rocker says to the hovering paramedics.
“His ribs are bruised, and he might have a concussion,” Deacon says.
“Okay, Judas,” Rocker says. “His left cheekbone is probably fractured.”
“Et, tu?” Deacon says. “Get some ice on that.”
Rocker makes a face but takes the icepack from the medic, holding it to the rapidly purpling bruise on his head.
“That was an interesting rescue plan,” Rocker says.
“I thought it was a pretty good one,” Deacon says. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“Your plan was to break in, get captured, feed me a handcuff key, and then escape together,” Rocker says. “Did I get that right?”
“That was about it,” Deacon says. “They’d be expecting me to behave stupidly, not have a plan.”
“There were a lot of places that could have gone wrong,” Rocker says.
“I know that too,” Deacon says. He hesitates. “You’re worth the risk.”
It’s not something that should be hard to admit to, Rocker already knows what he means to him, except suddenly he’s aware of just how much he means to him. The consequences of coming so close to losing something he’d never let himself fully accept, kept Rocker from being able to accept, stopped them both from becoming one the way he knows they’re supposed to be.
“I know you care,” Rocker says, easy as anything. “You still didn’t have to do that.”
“No, it was more than that,” Deacon says. “You’re… more. To me.”
He’s already put life on the line in an incredibly stupid and risky way just to get Rocker back, he can admit to this. Except the words stick in his throat and the surge of panic that hadn’t touched him during the entire hostage situation rears its head.
“You said before…” Rocker says cautiously. “Nothing more.”
“I can be wrong,” Deacon says. “And I was. I’ve been denying you, our bond, and what I knew was God’s will.”
Rocker snorts.
“Did you need anything else to add to that guilt?” he says. “I could probably find some other things for you to take on.”
“No, that’s probably enough,” Deacon says.
Rocker’s grinning up at him, lip stained red, eyes crinkled and so openly delighted that something in Deacon just sort of breaks.
His hands are free to hold Rocker’s face this time, his jaw sharp in his palms, kissing that bright smile of his. Rocker’s making that same startled sound he had before but pushing up into him this time instead of jerking back. There’s no ulterior motive, no stress or tension, no handcuff keys to juggle, just soft exploration, the slow burn inside him as something settles into place with Rocker’s hands on his hips anchoring him.
“David,” Rocker breathes against his mouth, pulling him closer before Deacon can react to his name in that tone, the wonder, the depth and acceptance in this kiss.
A wolf-whistle shatters the moment and Rocker flips the whistler off to laughter.
Panic jerks Deacon’s heart rate up and he freezes, a deer in headlights, yanked out of the connection and back into reality where he’s kissing Rocker in front of everyone, where he’s married and straight and—
“Hey, hey, breathe,” Rocker says, leaning back with open concern.
“I’m fine,” Deacon says automatically.
Rocker doesn’t even pretend to buy it, but somehow Deacon’s not sure he’s actually lying as the panic washes away under Rocker’s solidity. Under all the revelations of the day coming together — no, he’s not fine, he’s been shown his true path and that could never be just fine.
“It’s just the adrenaline,” Rocker says. “We’re soulmates, it was a high-stress situation, everyone will underst—”
“The Church has provisions for soulmate annulments,” Deacon says.
Rocker stops, chokes on his words.
“What?” he says, strangled.
“It’s rare, but they’re there,” Deacon says. “A bond ordained by God like ours supersedes any other vows.”
“That’s not what I was whatting,” Rocker says, still blankly. “I’m stuck on the part where you panicked because you were kissing me in public, and then announced you were willing to get divorced. For me.”
“Those are two different things,” Deacon protests, decidedly weakly.
“Look, there’s no reason for you to go through the mess of a divorce if you don’t even want to have a romantic, sexual relationship with me,” Rocker says, that sharpness back and pinning him down. “There isn’t.”
“But I do,” Deacon says. “I was just shown that I’ve been a coward and I need to accept you fully, that I need to stop hiding from what I know to be the truth and what I want.”
“There’s a lot going on in that sentence,” Rocker says. “Don’t do anything stupid just because you think you should, especially if you don’t want it.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Deacon says.
“Yeah?” Rocker says.
He leans back, braces himself on his hands, and Deacon misses the heat of his palms on his hips.
“Don’t rush this,” he says. “It’ll probably pass once the adrenaline wears off.”
“Don’t deny this to me,” Deacon says sharply, maybe too sharply for the one who’s been holding back. “Don’t deny me.”
“I’m not denying you,” Rocker says. “I’m saying that until ten minutes ago, as far as I knew, you saw me as a brother.”
Deacon winces.
“You don’t have to do anything drastic,” Rocker says. “I’m not going anywhere, ever.”
The simplicity of the words, the acceptance of where he stands as just a brother to him, no matter what he truly wants and feels, it reaches a critical mass for the second time in under five minutes.
This time he’s fully aware of what he’s doing, of the choice he’s making and the claim he’s staking so publicly. He’s making his intentions clear to everyone around them, and more importantly, to Rocker with the way he’s stepping closer, knee bumping into the ambulance, deepening their kiss until he’s not sure whose lip is split or whose blood he’s tasting.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Rocker says, breaking away with a breathless laugh. “You’re all in.”
Deacon opens his mouth and Rocker covers it.
“The rest can wait,” he says, like he knows what he was going to say, and the realization that he does know does funny things to his pulse. “We need to debrief, and I want an ice pack.”
“You had one,” Deacon says. “You dropped it.”
“Oh, right,” Rocker says, picking it up from the floor of the ambulance. “You distracted me.”
For the first time in his career, he hasn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to the operation going on behind them. It sounds done, he doesn’t care, no one’s rushing for the ambulance so it probably went fine. Rocker doesn’t move, just looks up at him with blue eyes so warm the sun must be hiding inside him and shining out.
“I looked up David and Jonathan,” Rocker says suddenly. “Confused the hell out of me.”
“Why?” Deacon says, frowning down at him.
“You said it like it was some proof of brotherhood, but the story?” Rocker says. “First I thought you were trying to dance around it, and then I realized you had no idea.”
“What do you mean?” Deacon says. “I know the story.”
Rocker looks fondly exasperated.
“David and Jonathan had something gay going on,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t you look?”
“I know what it’s about,” Deacon says, but his voice falters.
“Yeah, no,” Rocker says. “That line after Jonathan died?”
“‘Your love to me was more wonderful than…’” Than the love of women. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Rocker says. “You’re lucky you’re hot.”
That funny mixed nervous-pleasure comes back.
“You’re not actually comfortable with this,” Rocker says, too quick for him to even figure out what he’s feeling.
“I’ll manage,” Deacon says stubbornly. “We wouldn’t have been given this bond if it wasn’t meant to be.”
He hesitates, worried suddenly.
“Be patient with me?” he says. “It won’t be instant.”
“I know,” Rocker says. “I don’t mind.”
“You might when it takes a long time,” Deacon says.
“I’ve been waiting to meet you my entire life,” Rocker says. “I can wait with you next to me.”
“I didn’t take you for a romantic,” Deacon says, even as the words add to that unfamiliar buzzing in his veins.
Rocker shrugs, unbothered.
“You didn’t have a reason to know,” he says. “Now you can know all of me.”
“I intend to,” Deacon says.
“Now who’s the romantic?” Rocker teases, but that brilliant smile is back.
“Is this a competition?” Deacon says, carefully wiping away the blood from Rocker’s mouth.
“It can be,” Rocker says. “I don’t think there’s a way to lose at this.”
Deacon doesn’t know what’s on his face, but Rocker outright melts at whatever it is.
“Keep looking at me like that and I’ll crawl across broken glass for you,” he says.
“Don’t do that,” Deacon says.
Rocker grins at him, and then sighs, the openness shifting away a little.
“We should probably go talk to Hicks,” Rocker says. “See how badly you’re going to get chewed out.”
“He shouldn’t have found our bond if he didn’t want me to do stupid things to get you back,” Deacon says.
“I like this rogue side of you,” Rocker says, standing with a groan and favoring one leg. “Let’s get this over with. Maybe I can talk you into coming over later, when no one’s around to interrupt.”
Suddenly the worry about whatever reprimands he has coming his way for disobeying direct orders is gone, and Rocker’s laughing but limping along at his side all the same, arm hooked around his waist and their bond resonant in his chest.